Uniquely violent, stylish, and engaging, The Night Comes For Us is an exciting Netflix new drop that delivers on all fronts. With this film, Indonesian director Tjahjanto has established himself as a force to be reckoned with when it comes to creating gore-soaked action films unlike anything we’ve seen before.
Action movie fans have long known to look to Southeast Asia for the most exciting examples of the genre. The success of 2011’s The Raid: Redemption and its 2014 sequel The Raid 2 revealed that there is a wealth of talent in Indonesia, and the new Netflix release, The Night Comes For Us, raises the stakes even higher. It’s directed by Timo Tjahjanto, a filmmaker who collaborated with Raid director Gareth Evans on the terrifying Safe Haven, part of 2013’s anthology film V/H/S 2, and has previously worked in both horror and action. It takes several stars from the Raid movies and places them in an even more insanely violent context. You won’t see a more brutal action movie this year, and providing your tolerance for broken limbs and spraying arteries is high, you’re unlikely to see a better one either.
Like most movies of this type, the plot is extremely simple. Joe Taslim plays Ito, a gangster who is part of an elite group known as the Six Seas, whose job it is to enforce the smooth running of organised crime within the Golden Triangle, the area that borders Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. But Ito is pushed too far when he is asked to murder a young girl, so he takes the girl and goes on the run, reconnecting with his old gang. Inevitably, his former bosses want both Ito and the girl dead, so they send a seemingly never-ending army of heavily armed killers after them, including Ito’s old friend Arian (The Raid’s breakout star, Iko Uwais).
The story of a former killer seeking redemption and being hunted by his old employers is nothing new; most recently, we’ve seen Keanu Reeves play this role in the John Wick movies. But what makes The Night Comes For Us stand out is the sheer level of intense, bloody action that Tjahjanto unleashes. It’s ostensibly a martial arts movie–while there is some gunplay, most of the fighting is hand-to-hand (or knife-to-throat) combat in small spaces. But this is a world away from the stylised kung fu of Wuxia or Jackie Chan movies. Taslim, Uwais, and the other actors (including The Raid 2‘s Hammer Girl, Julie Estelle) might be unbelievably skilled martial artists, but they also sell the brutality of this fighting, as limbs are snapped, throats are cut, and heads are crushed.
If you’ve seen the director’s other work, his use of blood, gore, and humour will probably come as no surprise, and this film is a natural evolution for the man who brought us Safe Haven and 2016’s relentless action bloodbath Headshot. Another star vehicle for the brilliant martial artist Uwais, we’re more used to seeing the young Silat star as the hero, but in The Night Comes For Us he turns that on its head, playing antagonist to Taslim’s rogue Triad member. If The Raid’s main appeal was its stark simplicity, The Night Comes For Us luxuriates in its over-the-top ridiculousness. An early standout scene sees Taslim fight a group of men in a meat locker, utilizing a circular saw, pig’s trotter, and meat hooks as weapons in a sequence with as much blood as your average Evil Dead film.
As a massive fan of both horror and martial arts films, it’s pretty incredible to see how Tjahjanto has melded both, with some scenes feeling like they’d be more suited to a slasher movie than an action vehicle. But The Night Comes For Us never feels unbalanced, more like a vibrant exploration of two genres that share so much but have rarely been combined in the way that Tjahjanto makes seem so natural. As Ito battles his way across the city attempting to collect enough money to start a fresh life with his girlfriend, the young child he saves he comes up against more and more unbelievable threats, from taser-toting corrupt cops to numerous outlandishly weaponed henchmen (and women), making The Night Comes For Us relentless in the best possible way.
However, it’s not just the gore that makes Tjahjanto’s film stand out, as the fight choreography is incredible. It’s always a joy to watch Iko Uwais fight, and there’s something especially satisfying about the Mortal Kombat-esque joint manipulation and severity that his role as fight coordinator brings to these sequences. It’s a different style from the fluid and realistic brutality of The Raid, almost robotic and devastatingly effective here. Atmospheric and unendingly interesting, The Night Comes For Us is nothing short of brilliant. It’s wonderful that so many people will get to see it due to Netflix’s reach, but it’s so bloody good that it’s true a shame that none of us will ever get to see it on the big screen.